Last night I tested the theory that drinking large quantities of delicious Sauvignon Blanc would not cause me to wake up with a headache. The theory did not hold up, but another did: It’s a good thing to be a wine blogger. It was the long awaited night of the Wines of Chile Sauvignon Blanc Blogger tasting – an event that put us in the room (albeit virtually) with eight great winemakers from Chile and Master Sommelier Fred Dexhelmer – one of only 180 Master Sommeliers in the world.
I was invited to the wine tasting event through an email from The Thomas Collective – a PR firm presumably representing Wines of Chile in their marketing and promotional efforts. They would send 8 bottles of 2009 Sauvignon Blanc, along with food pairing suggestions, fresh olive oil samples, a corkscrew, and a litany of reading materials about Chilean wine. I would not be obligated to do anything. That sounded like a deal to me.
Nothing to see here. Just me and my grill.
I invited several of my friends over for the tasting (of course using WineMcGee’s great wine event management tools! :0 ), cleaned the apartment and ran to Jewel to pick up the obvious food pairing in my mind – Yes, you guessed it, bratwurst, chicken breasts, and potato chips. OK, the meal surely wouldn’t live up to the Tuna Tartare or Shrimp and Scallop Ceviche as recommended in the Wines of Chile material, but I felt like grilling out. And, even more of a problem is that it’s tough to get truly fresh seafood in Chicago – I’m not sure I would feel comfortable preparing Tuna Tartare with tuna I pick up at Whole Foods.
I raced back from the grocery store, ran the HDMI cable from the computer to the TV, and followed the event in the living room. They ran the tasting using Adobe Connect Pro, which I’d never used before, but it worked quite well. The left pane of the window provided a chat area in which all the bloggers posted their comments and questions, and the top and bottom panes were split video feeds – one with the host and the other with the winemakers, together in the batcave in Chile. It may be heresay, but I’ve heard that the Chilean government ordered the formation of a batcave before granting the license for all of these winemakers to gather in one room, just to be safe, as the future of the Chilean wine industry was in their hands.
We jumped into the tasting a bit late, around 6:20 and we had already missed out on the first two wines. Our first was the Undurraga Sauvignon Blanc 2009 from Leyda Valley. It was bright and fruity with some of the classic Sauvignon Blanc aromas – peach, grapefruit and mineral – very good. The next wine was a big shocker. The Valdivieso Single Vineyard Wild Fermented Sauvignon Blanc 2009 had a distinctly different taste than one would expect from a Sauvignon Blanc. Wild Fermentation, as explained in the documentation, meant that the barrels in which the wine would ferment were filled directly from the grape press and with the grapes natrual yeast rather than added yeasts.
Perhaps the fermentation went a little too wild. I’m not certain that the winemakers could see the chat from the bloggers, but I think they could. It was heartbreaking to see the look on winemaker Brett Jackson’s face as nearly all the bloggers pointed out that “this wine is flawed”, “tastes very yeasty”, and “almost like sherry.” I have to agree with everyone. There was something off with this wine that imparted slight aromas of alcohol and nail polish remover, and which made the wine taste somewhat like a fortified wine.
My favorite for the night was probably the Cono Sur Organic Sauvignon Blanc from San Antonio Valley. The wine was very well balanced, had nice acidity and expressive mineral notes. Other favorites were the Casa Silva Cool Coast Sauvignon Blanc from Colchagua Valley and the Ventisquero Queulat from Casablanca Valley. More than anything, this night reminded me that I love Sauvignon Blanc. I tend to drink more reds than whites, but this is certainly my favorite white varietal – I love the fruity peachy, grapefruit, and minerality often displayed in Sauvignon Blanc. In my mind, the wines certainly held their own in comparison to Sauvignon Blancs from other regions like California, New Zealand and Australia. The wines were tasty, and as evidenced by my headache this morning, perhaps too tasty.
If there’s one thing that will make you look like an idiot when tasting wine, more than anything else, it is being extremely tentative when it comes to swirling and sniffing. Do not be afraid to swirl and sniff, and in that exact order – early and often should be your motto. People that know what they are doing are confident and comfortable enough to give the wine a hurricane swirl prior to the first sip, and continue to swirl prior to sniffing throughout the tasting experience. Did you just spill all over your shirt? Well, take that as another lesson – don’t wear white to a wine tasting, fool.
Do not say “Oh, I don’t like Merlot” or “I don’t like Malbec” or make vast generalizations. If you are not an expert wine taster, you probably would have no freaking clue which wine was Merlot, which was Malbec and which was Cabernet Sauvignon in a three-wine-blind-taste-off. You just think you don’t like Merlot because you saw Sideways and your ex-boyfriend, who was an idiot, didn’t like Merlot. The same goes for any other grape variety. The winemaking process plays a major role in the taste of wine, so the grape is only a part of what defines a wines taste. Until you’ve tried a sizable sample of different wines in each style, try to reserve your generalizations. Knowledgeable wine drinkers often appreciate the differences in wine more than they critique them.
No, genius – cherries, blueberries, chocolate, and barnyard were not used in the production of your wine. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use these words to describe the flavor. We often use comparisons to explain things in our daily lives. We may say that something “sounded like a boom”, “tasted like crap” or “felt like a sting”. This is exactly what we do when wine tasting. If what you are tasting or smelling reminds you of something else, say it. There are no wrong answers, including everything from dog food and detergent, to apples and cigars.
